great things to come. And so though Green Valley buys only its yeast
and buns over his little counter he is happy and wraps each purchase up
carefully. And all the time he is thoughtfully, carefully setting out
other handy things and aids to the harassed housewife. For with his
giant patience Dick is waiting,--waiting and planning for a time that
is coming, that he knows must come. He talks these matters over with
no one except Joe Baldwin. He and Joe are great friends. Joe's little
shop is such a restful, hopeful place and Joe himself a gentle rather
than a loud and swearing man. One can talk things over joyfully with
Joe and feel sure of having one's confidence understood and kept. Like
Joe, Dick shrinks a little from the noisy, wholly earthy atmosphere of
the livery barn and blacksmith shop. He and Joe often go together of a
Saturday to the barber shop. They usually stay after closing hours for
the barber is their mutual friend.

This barber, John Gans, is a talker, a somewhat fierce and vehement
little man who lectures on many subjects but mostly on human rights and
politics. Joe and Dick, both silent men, look with awe at John's great
mental and discoursive powers. And because his views are theirs they
listen with something like joyful gratitude to hear their own thoughts
so clearly and fearlessly expressed.

The fiery little barber is thought by some to be a German anarchist and
by others a Russian socialist. Joe and Dick have been repeatedly
warned against him. But they are his loyal friends at all times. This
three-cornered friendship is little understood by the town and
ridiculed as a childish thing by the great minds that foregather at
Uncle Tony's.

But Grandma Wentworth remarked one Saturday afternoon, right in the